Launch Companies Beg NASA: Save the Space Planes!

In April, the Air Force launched into orbit its brand-new X-37B robotic space-plane, a maneuverable vehicle capable of spying on earth — and on other spacecraft — for nine months at a time. Now America’s private space companies want their own speedy, reusable space-plane in the vein of the X-37. To get it, late last year they motivated a NASA engineer to drag two long-defunct prototypes out of open-air desert storage. We’ve reported on the resurrection of the X-34 space-planes twice before in recent weeks, but only now are we beginning to appreciate the implications of the prototypes’ revival for the increasingly privatized U.S. space strategy.

Two weeks ago, Flight broke the news that NASA was inspecting its two long-grounded X-34 space planes, with an eye to possibly returning them to flight-testing. If successful, the effort could help the space agency catch up with the Air Force and its mysterious X-37B. Or so we assumed.

Following up with NASA and Orbital Sciences (the X-34s’ original builder), we learned that NASA wasn’t interested in operating the 59-foot-long, robotic X-34s for its own purposes. Rather, the agency would make the mid-1990s-vintage X-34s available to space entrepreneurs, in line with the Obama Administration’s “commercialization” of space exploration. “It would be helpful if they had a vehicle,” NASA official Alan Brown said of the growing ranks of space companies.

Now, thanks to a key player in the X-34 revival, we know a lot more about the origins of the effort. Turns out, private industry drove the initiative from the beginning. This reflects a profound shift in the way America approaches space exploration.

We originally reported that the idea to retrieve the X-34s from their purgatory at an Air Force bombing range in California originated with a NASA engineer. The engineer in question was Dave Huntsman, with the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA HQ in Washington, D.C. Huntsman dropped us an email to refine our portrayal of events.

“The real idea didn’t come from me, or my Dryden buddies, or from Orbital Sciences who built them [the X-34s],” Huntsman wrote. “It came during a week in October 2009, simultaneously, at a workshop in Dayton, Ohio (where the Air Force Research Lab is based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base), from two different entrepreneurial space companies.”

With Obama’s February decision to privatize space exploration, the annual workshop — jointly hosted by NASA and the Air Force on behalf of America’s space companies — reflected what Huntsman called a “paradigm shift” for U.S. space exploration. This year, NASA and the Air Force let the entrepreneurs take the lead in discussions. In separate, closed-door meetings, reps from two different companies asked Huntsman about the X-34s’ status. “Most of us didn’t even know the X-34s still existed, since it had been years since program cancellation,” the engineer mused.

Propelled by industry’s interest, Huntsman placed a few calls and located the X-34s on the bombing range. Sensing the renewed interest, in January the Air Force voluntarily towed the X-34s off the range, pictured — a tedious, weeks-long undertaking complicated by mud and distance. To pay for inspections, Huntsman and a growing band of allies counted on a phenomenon unique to government budget cycles.

“With the Dryden guys, I proposed to my boss (at the time) earlier this year that if any funds freed up in September 2010 (as fiscal year was ending) — not an uncommon occurrence — that we take AFRL up on their offer to fund half of a $400,000 study to determine the exact status of the vehicles by Orbital,” Huntsman wrote. “And that’s what happened.”

It’ll be another month until the inspections are complete, according to NASA. Only then will we know whether the X-34s have a future supporting private space exploration. Either way, the attention paid to the vehicles itself represents a sort of victory. “After 36 years in the agency, I’ve been one of the handful of malcontents the last few years trying to shift the agency’s paradigm to helping establish economically-sustainable commercial space flight,” Huntsman told us. With the X-34 resurrection, he took a small but important step toward that goal.

Here’s The Thing With Ad Blockers

We get it: Ads aren’t what you’re here for. But ads help us keep the lights on. So, add us to your ad blocker’s whitelist or pay $1 per week for an ad-free version of WIRED. Either way, you are supporting our journalism. We’d really appreciate it.